Those Mets

WIN ONE, LOSE ONE

At Tradition Field, the Mets fell to the Marlins by the score of 4-2. Jon Niese started for the Mets, and pitched pretty well, allowing just a run in 2 2/3 innings and striking out five before reaching his pitch count limit, handing the ball to Jenrry Mejia trailing 1-0 in the third inning. The Mets would take the lead in the bottom of the third, thanks to a heads up base running play by Angel Pagan, when he scored on a David Wright fielders choice and an error by Emilio Bonifacio to prolong the inning, and then Jason Bay doubled off the right field wall to score Wright to make it 2-1. …i have been really down on Pagan and his baseball instincts, but i was thrilled to see him score on that play, using his head and making a good, aggressive play to help the team… Mejia’s outing continued through the fifth inning, and he showed tremendous velocity and very good control of all of his pitches, striking out the first three batters he faced and retiring all seven batters he faced. Mejia went 2 1/3 innings, allowing no hits while striking out four. …although its an early spring game, Mejia looked awesome…he looked poised, confident, and most importantly, he looked like he was having a ball, with a big fist pump at the end of the top of the fourth inning… Ryota Igarashi pitched two innings but allowed a solo home run to Bonifacio in the seventh, which tied the game at two a piece. The Mets had some technical difficulties with the sprinklers before the top of the eighth inning, which delayed the action for a few minutes, but Pedro Feliciano took over for Igarashi and promptly allowed a leadoff double to Jorge Jiminez, then Cameron Maybin moved him over to third on a groundout, but then Feliciano struck out Marlins top prospect Mike Stanton and then got Vinny Rottino to ground out to end the inning. …Feliciano was all over the place today, but he was able to make big pitches when he needed to and got away unscathed… Bobby Parnell came on in the ninth, and with a runner at first and one out, the Marlins executed a perfect hit and run play to put runners at the corners, but Parnell struck out Bonifacio, and after walking Brett Carroll, got Jorge Jiminez to fly out to end the inning. But in the tenth, Parnell immediately found himself in trouble again, allowing a Cameron Maybin leadoff double, and then Mike Stanton connected for a two run home run to put the Marlins on top 4-2. …Parnell was in the upper 90s with his fastball, but like Feliciano, he just didn’t appear too comfortable out there today… The Mets mounted a rally in the bottom of the tenth and pulled within one when Mike Hessman reached on a fielders choice and an error which scored Sean Ratliff, but Ike Davis grounded out to end the game, giving the Marlins the victory. Meanwhile, in Jupiter against the Cardinals, the Mets defeated the Cardinals by the score of 7-3. Fernando Nieve pitched well in his first start of the Spring, going three innings and allowing just a run on three hits with two strikeouts, although he walked two in his outing. The Mets jumped out to an early 3-0 against the Cardinals in the first, thanks to an RBI double by Fernando Tatis, followed by RBI singles from Jeff Francoeur and Fernando Martinez, but Bobby Livingston took over for Nieve in the fourth and allowed two runs thanks to a Colby Rasmus RBI single which scored two for St. Louis to tie the game at three a piece. The Mets went in front in the seventh inning when Shawn Riggans drove in Chris Coste with two outs off of Cardinals reliever Ben Jukich, and then added two more in the ninth inning in support of Nelson Figueroa, who gave the Mets four innings of one hit ball. Fernando Martinez had another nice afternoon, going 2 for 4 with an RBI and a run scored against the Cardinals. (MetsBlog.com)